Slavery was under assault in the late spring and early summer 1861 from the acts of individual Union soldiers, the slaves themselves, and even members of Congress. Of the loyal slave states, none was more affected during this period than Maryland. As Union troops gathered in Northern Virginia to march on Richmond and prevent the rebel Congress from meeting, they often traveled through Maryland on their way south. Some slaves escaped into their camps, finding refuge and employment as personal servants or in other capacities.

While he also bemoaned the searches conducted by the Union army against citizens suspected of rebel sympathies, the bulk of Calvert’s letter addressed the army and escaped slaves. On this issue, he wrote:

To judge from the actions that began to emanate from the Lincoln administration, Congressman Calvert’s letter had an impact. Abraham Lincoln was well aware of the necessity of holding Maryland within the Union, as the state surrounded Washington, D.C. on three sides, the fourth side facing Confederate Virginia across the Potomac River. Lincoln had exerted much pressure on the state to forestall secession after the war started and on April 27, 1861, had taken the highly controversial step of suspending habeas corpus in Maryland. Having tightened the screws on Maryland, the President recognized the need to placate as well as coerce the state’s slaveholders, and did not support the House Resolution of July 9, 1861. These efforts will be dealt with soon in another edition of Civil War Emancipation.

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About Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer is the author of _After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans_ (Kansas, 2004), which won the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship in 2005. More recently he published (with Elizabeth Regosin), _Voices of Emancipation: Understanding Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction through the U.S. Pension Bureau Files_ (2008). Dr. Shaffer teaches online exclusively (i.e., a virtual professor). He lives in Arizona and can be contacted at donald_shaffer@yahoo.com